Vettel wins Webber doesn't

[Wizzo]

I love Sky's comment 'we don’t measure our success by viewing figures' 

[Ian]

They never got any success in my house anyway.

[F1fanaticBD]

The tracks in question

Sepang - Petronas will ensure there is race in this track

Abu Dhabi - Ferrari will use its veto power, if there is in any chance of pulling this off the calender

Bahrain - After all the debates last year, the race was still on because both McLaren and Mercedes has investments from this country, and they will pursue within their limits to make sure that it remains in their.

China - I don't need to stress how important this market is for almost all the brands that endorses F1 carnival.

My point is that as all these tracks are put in the calender, due to their might of economic power, and these will ensure that CVC will be economically benefit holding races in this venues, no matter how much you debate about their presence they will exist.

Another point is that I think F1 uses the number of Audience to attract the companies for endorsements, other than that it is hardly a figure that CVC at this moment can ignore, because it is making profits this way or the other, and that what matters to them now. Is it a good thing? Absolutely not, as I have mentioned in somewhere else in this forum, I would not have been a fan of F1 if my family had to pay any money to attain TV viewership. The drop of TV viewership has long term effect, and will certainly show them in the long run. Perhaps CVC think when they will reach that moment, they would have made enough, and left the sports.

Audience figures directly or indirectly influence every method CVC has of making money. This is why it is important to track - it may influence when CVC decides it can't make more money from the franchise.

I think the only time they will be leaving, when their earning will hit a dip. Yes TV viewers number will have a significant influence, but I think revenues from the TV will play a more important role. I think CVC is pushing it hard as because any significant drop of revenue will hit the TV channel first, and thus it may give CVC enough time to get out.

[Alianora La Canta]

I think the only time they will be leaving, when their earning will hit a dip. Yes TV viewers number will have a significant influence, but I think revenues from the TV will play a more important role. I think CVC is pushing it hard as because any significant drop of revenue will hit the TV channel first, and thus it may give CVC enough time to get out.

Even when free-to-air was the predominant broadcast mode for F1, audience figures influenced how much TV companies were willing to pay. With the increase in pay TV, that link becomes direct - only through TV subscriptions (which people need to see pay TV) and advertising (which not only requires subscriptions, but people seeing them in order to buy the product to justify the ads) can the TV companies justify paying the Bernie fees. Without high audience figures, pay TV companies don't break even, so CVC takes a fairly immediate hit from people abandoning F1. Especially since it's emerging that the only thing most of the F1 fans who can pay for pay TV have in common is a love of F1.